#CarseatFullstop – Campaigning for Car Seat Awareness

I have been very scarce here of late and I am sorry. I am missing writing and sharing, but my heart and all my attention has been focused on putting together a national car seat awareness campaign for South Africa called #CarseatFullstop.

Not for a client, not for money, but because I got tired of being that mom who shakes her head and shares stories with friends, or even on just on my blog, about the endless children I see jumping and climbing around moving cars or even just little children sitting on the front seats of cars or not strapped in sitting in the back. My blood runs cold and I realised I could make an actual difference. So I created #CarseatFullstop.

This campaign has been incredibly difficult. The research, the personal stories, the videos, the statistics, the imagery, it leaves a mark on you. Just the thought of losing a child makes me feel sick. Losing your child because you were too busy to put your child in their car seat or because you didn’t know how important a car seat was after your child turned 4, or that a seatbelt could do more harm than good to a child too small to wear one, or or or… any of the endless reasons you didn’t strap them in just this one time… Living forever knowing that you could have kept your child from dying or living a life in a wheelchair or in assisted living… Knowing that, no matter what, no matter how carefully you drive or how short a trip it might be, it was absolutely 100% your fault… I can’t even. #CarseatFullstop. No excuses, no ifs or buts. Always, every time.

I have spent hours and hours on this campaign, putting together messaging that I believe will make a difference. Imagery that will stay with even one single person long enough for them to strap their child in every single time they get into a car. That is one life saved. This campaign is all about sharing. Do you know how incredibly HARD it is to get people to share things?

If I pour my soul into an article, sharing stories that will break your heart or cause you to breathe a sigh of relief for the parent who did use a car seat. If I share statistics of road accidents and how your baby is 71% less likely to die if in a car seat. If you, dear reader, read that story but you don’t share it, then the message stops here. Yes, I may have changed your heart, your mind, or confirmed your own passionate beliefs on the subject of keeping our babies safe on the roads… but what if your sister, your parent, your cousin, your high school friend, your colleague, any of the hundreds of people you share space with on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or Pinterest ot YouTube or anywhere else for that matter… What if they desperately needed to read that message?

What if tomorrow morning they wake up late and the toddler is throwing a tantrum and nobody has slept all night? What if they are tired and the creche is only 10 metres from home? What if they just give up and shout, “Just stop shouting and sit there then! Sit still!”? What if 2 metres up the road, another busy distracted driver answers his cell phone and jumps the stop street?

What if reading that story tonight meant that no matter how hard that toddler is screaming, the story of the mom who’s baby was projected straight out the side window of a car because he wasn’t strapped into his car seat is still fresh in that mama’s mind and she grits her teeth, dodges the toddler fists and straps her baby in instead. It takes a second to click a share button.

I am going to be sharing stories like that. I have gotten lots of other mommies who have platforms like this to also agree to share stories like that. I have spoken to magazines and radio stations and big familiar brand names to also agree to share stories like that. I have collected facts that have made me cry. I have heard stories that have made me get up in the night and go stroke my baby’s face. These stories can save lives. Car seats save lives.

You have the power to save a little life. One share, seen by one person, who straps in one child, saves a life. Saves a lot of lives, if you consider what is left of a family after losing a child. The network I have put together to share this message, #CarseatFullstop, that network has 2,250,000 single human beings following them. Imagine if every single one of you took a second to hit that share button?

85% of children in cars in South Africa are not strapped in an appropriate car seat. 85%! That means that you, or somebody you know, IS part of that percentage.

Every child in a car seat is a safe life and I want YOU to be part of the movement to make that happen.

Thanks for the explanation re booster cushions. My sons are 4 and 2 so we’re not at that stage yet. When my younger son was about five or six months old a car crashed into me. I was at a traffic light. The light has turned green but the cars in front of me weren’t moving yet. My son was securely strapped into a rear facing car seat so he was fine. He just woke up and cried. I didn’t realise at the time that his weight would have been multiplied so many kgs due to the impact, even if the car was only going 40km an hour. I know so many people who are really casual about strapping their kids in. I’ve been sharing posts to try and raise awareness. Thank you!

Trackbacks

[…] Car seat – Always choose an infant specific car seat as opposed to a 0 – 36kgs one!!! A seat fit for a toddler is NOT a good fit for a baby. Baby car seats MUST be rear-facing. This can be extremely hard for moms with babies that don’t like the car. Something I invested in that seems to have helped – a mirror that allows me to see her and her to see me. […]

[…] (and just in time for me to start preparing you for Christmas!!). This week marks the last week of my #CarseatFullstop campaign. I have a million things to do and a million more plans for the future, but I am going to take a […]

[…] knows by now that I have been invisible to you guys the past few months because of my car seat campaign #CarseatFullstop. You also know I turned Charly back rearwards-facing and I promised I would tell you all about it […]